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Ted the Kiwi said...
I think a few of you are missing the point here. Driving is a privilege not a right. 4 kids hit in school zones in Sydney this week - not much fun. Yes it would be nice if all school zones had flashing lights - in this day and age there is no reason why they do not - but you should be aware of the surroundings you are in at all times otherwise you have the potential to be a menace on the road and it's not fair on others. Some roads are terrible with all their speed changes - it feels like every 200m sometimes. Take the precautionary approach and leave 5 mins before you need to. The road toll is horrific. I would agree that some speed cameras would appear to be revenue raisers but seriously if you do not speed there is nothing to worry about. I wish more red light cameras were put in. Personal responsibility seems to be lacking on many things in our society at present. There is always someone else to blame it seems. What a hoax.

I think the crap traffic conditions in Sydney has a lot to do with driver behavior. The roads are that congested that it takes ages to get anywhere sometimes, so people get impatient and run red lights, and speed. I don't defend it, but I can understand it.

I grew up in Wollongong where there was no need to sit so close to the car in front because the traffic was so light. When I moved to Sydney, the same distance gets people fired up for leaving so much space.

Yes, there is no reason in this day and age for school zones to not have flashing lights. If it is so unsafe that people need to slow down, then its unsafe enough to spend the money to avoid the risk of someone being hurt. If they collect fines from any of these areas and there are not flashing lights, the money should be used immediately to upgrade those lights. After all, it is unsafe, so the priority is making it safe, not collecting fines.

Having said this, it was quite noticeable that flashing lights weren't installed until the RTA were embarrassed about a guy coming up with a cheap and accurate way to build them when the RTA were saying they hadn't come up with a good solution at the time.

People are people. I don't often set the clock in my cars, so I don't check to see what time it is, so the flashing lights are a serious sign to me, that it really is time to slow down to less than 40. I will make the effort to check, when I see zones that don't have lights, but how am I going to know if its a pupil free day, or school holidays?

If I get a fine for speeding I take it gracefully as I know the road rules and I slow down to atleast 40 in school zones. Traffic is so bad around our kids school im lucky to hit 20 anyway. But fines for unregistered cars is annoying. Hardly happened when we had rego stickers. Some fines are just stupid, when my brother was young he was fined for not taking his P plates down one week after he was off them. He drove a mini moke and they were strapped to the bumpers.